Gringo adventurer goes down South American rabbit hole looking for Inca treasure.

Pulp fiction, genre fiction, crime fiction—call it what you want. Basically, none of it will ever win a Pulitzer Prize, but it can be mighty enjoyable when done just right. Plunder of the Sun is faster than fast pulp-style fiction from To Catch a Thief author David Dodge. The rough and tumble protagonist Al Colby tries to unravel the secret of an Inca quipa—an ancient numero-linguistic recording device—which may tell the location of an impossibly huge hoard of gold. The tale speeds from Santiago, Chile to Lima, Peru and into the high Andes by boat, train, and tram to a climax on the highest lake in the world.

This is a confident yarn from an author who traveled widely in the countries portrayed, and his tale avoids the cultural judgments you often find in these types of novels. His descriptions of cities, hotels, and transport are unflattering but accurate, yet his treatment of the Peruvian and Chilean villains has no whiff of condescension. They're just the villains, nothing more—smart, tough, deadly, and motivated. The book's only flaw is its late turn toward romantic matchmaking. Still, it was a very good read. It became a movie of the same name in 1953, placed in a new setting, with Glenn Ford and Diana Lynn. The art on this 1951 Dell paperback is by Robert Stanley, and as a bonus it comes in a collectible mapback edition.

Archaeologists have uncovered a set of stone ruins in Argentina they believe were constructed to serve as homes for Nazis fleeing Europe during the aftermath of World War II. The buildings are located in a mountainous, barely accessible area of the Teyu Cuare national park in northern Argentina where it meets the border with Paraguay. The archaeologists believe these are Nazi structures because they uncovered German coins minted between 1938 and 1941, and fragments of a plate made in Germany. The fact that such structures were found in Argentina isn’t a surprise—another stone house found years ago (below) in the same park is believed to have been built for Parteikanzlei chief Martin Bormann, who never got to use it. In the end the Nazis never really needed their Teyu Cuare lairs—as many as 9,000 of them fled to Argentina openly, welcomed by the government of Juan Peron.

Argentina was hardly unique in that respect. Thousands more Nazis settled in Brazil, Chile, and in the fascist dictatorship of Paraguay. Hundreds fled to the Middle East. At least one resided for a brief time inQuebec. Via Operation Paperclip, high ranking Nazi party members such as Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus, and Arthur Rudolph were welcomed into the U.S., mainly due to their knowledge of physics and rocketry. Hubertus Strughold (at right) was also brought over. He had a different kind of knowledge—direct awareness of and possible involvement with fatal medical experiments relating to extreme environments and atmospheric pressure. All four men were given jobs at NASA.

There’s no word yet on what the Argentine government plans to do with the newly discovered Teyu Cuare structures. The alleged Borman house still stands and even has a sign noting its unusual history. However most countries prefer to wipe out evidence of government or citizen collaboration with the Third Reich by opting to raze Nazi structures.

First the Festival of San Fermin, and now Spain’s World Cup victory. To say last night’s celebration was exuberant is an understatement. Nevertheless, we’re back to doing what we do, so here’s a random Spanish-language magazine we ran across, the long-running film publication Ecran, which is not from Spain but rather from Chile. This issue is circa 1965, with Italian actress Elsa Martinelli on the cover. Martinelli starred in a couple of our favorite cheesy flicks from the sixties, which means we’ll be getting back to her in more detail soon.

We’re starting 2010 out right, with an absolutely amazing poster from an equally amazing film. At least, we think it’s amazing. Reactions to Chilean-born director Alexandro Jodorowski’s El Topo run the gamut—some hail it as high art; other think it’s a pretentious and garbled mess. However, it’s undeniable that the film hails from a much more daring cinematic era. It’s also one of the first true midnight films, gaining popularity during its 1970 Stateside run among New York City’s artsy, nocturnal filmgoing crowd after a slow start in conventional release. Basically, El Topo ("topo" means "mole" in Spanish, but is used as slang to describe an awkward person) is a western, but it’s also a commingling of Biblical and eastern religion themes. Doesn’t that sound fun? The two halves of the film have different flavors, and this tends to turn off some viewers. Jodorowski confessed that a couple of important transitional shots got ruined and were never replaced. Add in all the nudity, dwarves, and random events, and it’s easy to think of the film as sloppy. But what isn’t sloppy is the Italian poster by Enrico de Seta, one of the true masters of cinema promo art, who we’ll be featuring again in the future. In the meantime, we recommend a viewing of El Topo. It’s a unique vision by a singular filmmaker—grand, violent, disturbing, and most of all, pulp.

Check out the above shot of American cinema legend Cary Grant, looking his debonair best on the cover of the Chilean movie magazine Ecran. And on the back cover is Tina Louise from the days before she was banished to Gilligan’s Island. "Ecran" is not, as far as we can tell with our imperfect language skills, Spanish, but rather French. The word means "screen," but we don't think the magazine is affiliated with French film magazine L’Ecran. We could be wrong about that, though. In any case, we have more issues of Ecran we'll show you later. This one was published in 1959.

Alrightee, folks, we’re taking a few days off to go pulp hunting. El Monkey Blanco will be scouring the alleyways of Southeast Asia, and Chile Negro will be pounding the pavement in Western Europe. In the meantime, help a brother out and spread our url around. We’re new to this website thing and don’t have it down to an art just yet, but we think we have something unique here and we’d like to share it with as many people as possible. The treasure hunting, writing, and web research are all good fun, but we’re attention whores. So pimp us. Back Tuesday.

The story we posted not long ago about the Griddle Virgin got us thinking about how very pulp lucha libre is. You got a bunch of mean-as-snakes guys kicking the living shit out of each other. You got costumes, secret identities, and exotic tropical locales. And the whole enterprise, let’s face it, comes off a bit seedy. As if those elements weren’t pulp enough, we just discovered that lucha libre promo posters are often printed on low quality paper just like the old dime paperbacks. So today we have a selection of lucha libre art for your enjoyment. If it stimulates a burning desire to try the lucha lifestyle, you can start by getting a wrestling moniker of your own here. We tried it and ours are El Monkey Blanco and Chile Negro—seriously. Suddenly you can cut the racial tension in here with a knife.

American pop artist Andy Warhol, whose creations have sold for as much as 100 million dollars, dies of cardiac arrhythmia following gallbladder surgery in New York City. Warhol, who already suffered lingering physical problems from a 1968 shooting, requested in his will for all but a tiny fraction of his considerable estate to go toward the creation of a foundation dedicated to the advancement of the visual arts.

1947—Edwin Land Unveils His New Camera

In New York City, scientist and inventor Edwin Land demonstrates the first instant camera, the Polaroid Land Camera, at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The camera, which contains a special film that self-develops prints in a minute, goes on sale the next year to the public and is an immediate sensation.

1965—Malcolm X Is Assassinated

American minister and human rights activist Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam, who shotgun him in the chest and then shoot him sixteen additional times with handguns. Though three men are eventually convicted of the killing, two have always maintained their innocence, and all have since been paroled.

1935—Caroline Mikkelsen Reaches Antarctica

Norwegian explorer Caroline Mikkelsen, accompanying her husband Captain Klarius Mikkelsen on a maritime expedition, makes landfall at Vestfold Hills and becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica. Today, a mountain overlooking the southern extremity of Prydz Bay is named for her.

1972—Walter Winchell Dies

American newspaper and radio commentator Walter Winchell, who invented the gossip column while working at the New York Evening Graphic, dies of cancer. In his heyday from 1930 to the 1950s, his newspaper column was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, he was read by 50 million people a day, and his Sunday night radio broadcast was heard by another 20 million people.

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